A key issue is the level of employment in Oakland and its composition, which is driven by the lack of strategy. We know that public safety is chronically understaffed, with police academies on and then cancelled, salaries increased then staff are laid off, fire stations built and then closed, etc., leading to erratic outcomes and a lack of basic services.
The absolute level of employment is important too. Today Oakland has about 5,000 employees, while in 1990 it had about 2,500. Oakland's population in 2020 it was 435,000, while in 1990 was about 400,000 (US Census). In 30 years, the population increased about 9%, while the city's employment level increased by about 100%. Oakland did not grow in square mileage during those 30 years.
For comparison, San Jose has a population of 969,000 - 200% that of Oakland - and has about 7,000 employees, about 50% more than Oakland.
It’s interesting (and somewhat contradictory) that many of the same voices who criticize the number of city employees also acknowledge that Oakland lacks adequate staffing for essential functions like permit approvals, code enforcement, ticketing, and infrastructure maintenance. This inconsistency reflects a broader problem: a tendency to treat city government as bloated in the abstract while simultaneously depending on services that require trained, adequately resourced staff. Rather than pushing for smart reinvestment in these roles, this mindset fuels opposition to hiring and undercuts efforts to rebuild core capacity. In many cases, these critics are also benefiting from relatively low property taxes due to long-standing assessments under Proposition 13, meaning they pay less into the system while demanding more from it. The result is a political environment where necessary public functions are undermined not by budget realities alone, but by a persistent refusal to acknowledge the true cost of a functioning city.
My wife and I just returned from a road trip to Detroit where we grew up, and it was exciting to see what a comeback the city has made. It really shows what good leadership and a positive community spirt can accomplish.
We drove all around, and noticed how clean everything was. No tent camps, no potholes, no trash on the city streets, and freeways, and new construction everywhere.
It proves what Oakland could accomplish if our leaders only had the same spine and will. Maybe our city leaders should contact the Detroit managers to find out what their secret sauce is.
Great callout David! I was part of Loren Taylor’s campaign team, and Detroit was one of the example cities we examined for lessons learned that could be applied to Oakland. There are differences but also some great parallels and applicable techniques that can be copied for Oakland’s revitalization. Hopefully the current city leadership will take some of those ideas and put them into practice.
While the initial summary raises legitimate concerns about Oakland’s fiscal trajectory, it lacks critical historical context, oversimplifies complex financial dynamics, and focuses heavily on perceived mismanagement without acknowledging key structural challenges or progress made in recent years.
To begin with, the assertion that “Oakland isn’t actually broke” based on per capita tax revenue comparisons ignores the deeper reality of the city’s financial obligations and demographic pressures. It is true that Oakland collects more in taxes per resident than many other California cities. However, this comparison overlooks the city’s higher poverty rate, greater public service needs, and legacy of underinvestment. According to U.S. Census data, approximately 15 percent of Oakland residents live below the poverty line, significantly higher than San Jose or Fremont. Oakland also has one of the highest rates of homelessness per capita in the state. These conditions demand more spending on housing, health services, public safety, and social programs.
Furthermore, Oakland’s commercial and industrial tax base is smaller and less diversified than cities like Los Angeles or San Diego. Much of Oakland’s land is exempt from taxation due to the presence of county facilities, the Port of Oakland, and other non-taxable institutions. This reduces the available discretionary revenue even if per capita tax collection appears high on paper.
The claim that the current crisis is due to overspending also fails to recognize that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Oakland had made significant progress toward fiscal stability. By the end of fiscal year 2018–2019, the city had increased its emergency reserves to nearly $140 million and adopted structurally balanced budgets. Oakland was making progress on deferred maintenance, public safety reform, and affordable housing through targeted investment strategies. The pandemic caused a sudden and dramatic drop in key revenues, including hotel taxes, business license taxes, and parking revenue. These losses were compounded by emergency spending on health and housing services. The federal relief funds were not used recklessly; they allowed the city to avoid widespread layoffs and maintain essential services during an unprecedented crisis.
The summary also criticizes the growth in spending without acknowledging that much of this increase is due to mandatory costs. These include collective bargaining agreements, rising pension obligations through CalPERS, and inflation in core service areas like waste management and insurance. Public employee wage growth has outpaced inflation in some categories, but this trend is visible across many California cities due to cost-of-living pressures and labor market competition. These contracts are legally binding and reflect both union negotiations and state employment laws.
Regarding the idea that the city is assuming hypothetical revenue from future tax measures, it is important to clarify that this is part of long-range financial planning. Multi-year budget projections often include different revenue scenarios, including best-case and worst-case outcomes. Planning based on future voter decisions does not mean the city is spending that money prematurely. Instead, it helps the city understand the scale of future gaps and what additional revenues might be required to maintain services.
The examples of delayed road paving and staffing shortages in emergency services are indeed concerning, but they stem from more than budget management alone. The failure to issue Measure KK bonds in a timely fashion involved both administrative delays and market timing considerations. The dispatcher staffing shortage is related to a national recruitment crisis in emergency communications, as well as a lengthy and rigorous training pipeline that often takes more than a year to complete.
Finally, the summary fails to recognize reforms Oakland has undertaken to improve transparency and accountability. The city has expanded its use of participatory budgeting in some districts, developed equity-based budgeting tools, and published detailed budget reports online. The Budget Advisory Commission, composed of civilian members, plays a growing role in budget oversight. While there is still much work to be done, the suggestion that city leadership is not engaged or serious about reform is inaccurate.
Oakland is not a city that simply wastes money. It is a city that faces high needs, constrained resources, and decades of disinvestment. While better execution and stronger fiscal discipline are necessary, these alone will not resolve the structural challenges. Any serious discussion about Oakland’s budget must take into account its history, population needs, economic structure, and the impact of the pandemic. Selectively focusing on failures without offering a complete picture does a disservice to the community and to the broader goal of building a more effective and equitable city government.
A City Manager/Council form of government would definitely help build in more accountability rather than the hybrid strong Mayor/City administrator form of government we have now. Oakland needs a strong City Manager with proven experience in managing a city the size of Oakland.
The report from Empower Oakland is appreciated, but of the 535 highest compensated folks in Oakland, all with total compensation over $350K in 2023, 509 are either in Police or Fire, and the inflated compensation is mainly due to overtime. By contrast, the rank and file workers that aren't in public safety jobs deliver real services, and have NOT had steeply rising salaries highlighted in the "Oakland Report".
I know this because I scrolled through the first 11 pages of the Transparency report. The 26 non public safety employees in the top 535 are mostly department heads with higher salaries and almost no overtime, and a few city attorneys and civil engineers who check building plans who have slightly lower salaries and significant overtime.
I worked for the City for 20+ years in a non-public safety job, never making more than $95K in salary, and earning ZERO overtime. I am now retired, but must add, regarding the Q of public unions, that I was also somewhat ambivalent about public unions. However, importantly, the greatest value of my union was at budget time, when they fought for non-sworn employees to get a fair shake vs. public safety employees. Police and fire are more than 50% of the city's budget, with overtime being a huge inflationary factor. Public safety is critical, of course, and those are challenging jobs, but overtime skews Empower Oakland's analysis.
I should add that my job was a white collar job in Business Development... The folks (not managers) who physically clean the streets and maintain the parks in Oakland typically make $50K or less.
Join Alameda County Taxpayers Association. Stopping the free spending starts with awareness. Same at State level. We need to #FiXProp19. Find out more at Www.ForCalifornians.com
Years ago, the Citizens Budget Advisory Commission tried to initiate performance based metrics. We started with Parks and Rec (the only place we were allowed to initiate). I have no idea what happened to that program.
Can you provide the source for Oaklands depleted emergency reserve? The last financials I looked at claimed the higher $200m+ number.
Also is there any serious argument that the city can _legally_ access the measure NN funds without budgeting for 700 officers? The prop says any emergency must be unanticipated. These fiscal problems have been known for years!
Curious why no mention of the unfunded liabilities the city has (from pensions and retiree health benefits to employees that include fire and police) that will continue to rise? These are more generous than surrounding municipalities (which already pay more), so if the city were to slash those, it might make it even more challenging for the city to recruit public safety workers. Source: SPUR presentation included in the City's budget workshops [https://cao-94612.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/documents/Budget-Workshops_All-Partners-Presentations-without-Notes_2025-03-14-073744_giss.pdf]
I saw Detroit for the first time in June 2024 and I was impressed with the progress Detroit has made on it's long-in-coming comeback. I don't know enough about Detroit to know how they achieved that progress, but I do know enough about Oakland to have an opinion about how we keep going downhill. I don't blame the political leadership, who are just taking advantage of the generosity of Oakland voters who keep throwing good money after bad. The political leadership has no incentive to come to grips with the hard-core incompetence of the public workforce because voters keep bailing them out. I was flabbergasted that voters increased the sales tax after a flurry of dishonest mailers that didn't even tell voters what the new tax rate would be. That political literature promised the same basic services that Oakland deserves that were promised to them in Measure NN in November 2024. Now the same services will be promised to them if they vote to raise their parcel taxes again. Wake up, Oakland. Quit enabling your feckless political representatives.
A key issue is the level of employment in Oakland and its composition, which is driven by the lack of strategy. We know that public safety is chronically understaffed, with police academies on and then cancelled, salaries increased then staff are laid off, fire stations built and then closed, etc., leading to erratic outcomes and a lack of basic services.
The absolute level of employment is important too. Today Oakland has about 5,000 employees, while in 1990 it had about 2,500. Oakland's population in 2020 it was 435,000, while in 1990 was about 400,000 (US Census). In 30 years, the population increased about 9%, while the city's employment level increased by about 100%. Oakland did not grow in square mileage during those 30 years.
For comparison, San Jose has a population of 969,000 - 200% that of Oakland - and has about 7,000 employees, about 50% more than Oakland.
It’s interesting (and somewhat contradictory) that many of the same voices who criticize the number of city employees also acknowledge that Oakland lacks adequate staffing for essential functions like permit approvals, code enforcement, ticketing, and infrastructure maintenance. This inconsistency reflects a broader problem: a tendency to treat city government as bloated in the abstract while simultaneously depending on services that require trained, adequately resourced staff. Rather than pushing for smart reinvestment in these roles, this mindset fuels opposition to hiring and undercuts efforts to rebuild core capacity. In many cases, these critics are also benefiting from relatively low property taxes due to long-standing assessments under Proposition 13, meaning they pay less into the system while demanding more from it. The result is a political environment where necessary public functions are undermined not by budget realities alone, but by a persistent refusal to acknowledge the true cost of a functioning city.
My wife and I just returned from a road trip to Detroit where we grew up, and it was exciting to see what a comeback the city has made. It really shows what good leadership and a positive community spirt can accomplish.
We drove all around, and noticed how clean everything was. No tent camps, no potholes, no trash on the city streets, and freeways, and new construction everywhere.
It proves what Oakland could accomplish if our leaders only had the same spine and will. Maybe our city leaders should contact the Detroit managers to find out what their secret sauce is.
Great callout David! I was part of Loren Taylor’s campaign team, and Detroit was one of the example cities we examined for lessons learned that could be applied to Oakland. There are differences but also some great parallels and applicable techniques that can be copied for Oakland’s revitalization. Hopefully the current city leadership will take some of those ideas and put them into practice.
While the initial summary raises legitimate concerns about Oakland’s fiscal trajectory, it lacks critical historical context, oversimplifies complex financial dynamics, and focuses heavily on perceived mismanagement without acknowledging key structural challenges or progress made in recent years.
To begin with, the assertion that “Oakland isn’t actually broke” based on per capita tax revenue comparisons ignores the deeper reality of the city’s financial obligations and demographic pressures. It is true that Oakland collects more in taxes per resident than many other California cities. However, this comparison overlooks the city’s higher poverty rate, greater public service needs, and legacy of underinvestment. According to U.S. Census data, approximately 15 percent of Oakland residents live below the poverty line, significantly higher than San Jose or Fremont. Oakland also has one of the highest rates of homelessness per capita in the state. These conditions demand more spending on housing, health services, public safety, and social programs.
Furthermore, Oakland’s commercial and industrial tax base is smaller and less diversified than cities like Los Angeles or San Diego. Much of Oakland’s land is exempt from taxation due to the presence of county facilities, the Port of Oakland, and other non-taxable institutions. This reduces the available discretionary revenue even if per capita tax collection appears high on paper.
The claim that the current crisis is due to overspending also fails to recognize that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Oakland had made significant progress toward fiscal stability. By the end of fiscal year 2018–2019, the city had increased its emergency reserves to nearly $140 million and adopted structurally balanced budgets. Oakland was making progress on deferred maintenance, public safety reform, and affordable housing through targeted investment strategies. The pandemic caused a sudden and dramatic drop in key revenues, including hotel taxes, business license taxes, and parking revenue. These losses were compounded by emergency spending on health and housing services. The federal relief funds were not used recklessly; they allowed the city to avoid widespread layoffs and maintain essential services during an unprecedented crisis.
The summary also criticizes the growth in spending without acknowledging that much of this increase is due to mandatory costs. These include collective bargaining agreements, rising pension obligations through CalPERS, and inflation in core service areas like waste management and insurance. Public employee wage growth has outpaced inflation in some categories, but this trend is visible across many California cities due to cost-of-living pressures and labor market competition. These contracts are legally binding and reflect both union negotiations and state employment laws.
Regarding the idea that the city is assuming hypothetical revenue from future tax measures, it is important to clarify that this is part of long-range financial planning. Multi-year budget projections often include different revenue scenarios, including best-case and worst-case outcomes. Planning based on future voter decisions does not mean the city is spending that money prematurely. Instead, it helps the city understand the scale of future gaps and what additional revenues might be required to maintain services.
The examples of delayed road paving and staffing shortages in emergency services are indeed concerning, but they stem from more than budget management alone. The failure to issue Measure KK bonds in a timely fashion involved both administrative delays and market timing considerations. The dispatcher staffing shortage is related to a national recruitment crisis in emergency communications, as well as a lengthy and rigorous training pipeline that often takes more than a year to complete.
Finally, the summary fails to recognize reforms Oakland has undertaken to improve transparency and accountability. The city has expanded its use of participatory budgeting in some districts, developed equity-based budgeting tools, and published detailed budget reports online. The Budget Advisory Commission, composed of civilian members, plays a growing role in budget oversight. While there is still much work to be done, the suggestion that city leadership is not engaged or serious about reform is inaccurate.
Oakland is not a city that simply wastes money. It is a city that faces high needs, constrained resources, and decades of disinvestment. While better execution and stronger fiscal discipline are necessary, these alone will not resolve the structural challenges. Any serious discussion about Oakland’s budget must take into account its history, population needs, economic structure, and the impact of the pandemic. Selectively focusing on failures without offering a complete picture does a disservice to the community and to the broader goal of building a more effective and equitable city government.
A City Manager/Council form of government would definitely help build in more accountability rather than the hybrid strong Mayor/City administrator form of government we have now. Oakland needs a strong City Manager with proven experience in managing a city the size of Oakland.
Thanks for this. Very clear and helpful. Love the bullet format (as opposed to dozens of dense paragraphs).
The report from Empower Oakland is appreciated, but of the 535 highest compensated folks in Oakland, all with total compensation over $350K in 2023, 509 are either in Police or Fire, and the inflated compensation is mainly due to overtime. By contrast, the rank and file workers that aren't in public safety jobs deliver real services, and have NOT had steeply rising salaries highlighted in the "Oakland Report".
I know this because I scrolled through the first 11 pages of the Transparency report. The 26 non public safety employees in the top 535 are mostly department heads with higher salaries and almost no overtime, and a few city attorneys and civil engineers who check building plans who have slightly lower salaries and significant overtime.
I worked for the City for 20+ years in a non-public safety job, never making more than $95K in salary, and earning ZERO overtime. I am now retired, but must add, regarding the Q of public unions, that I was also somewhat ambivalent about public unions. However, importantly, the greatest value of my union was at budget time, when they fought for non-sworn employees to get a fair shake vs. public safety employees. Police and fire are more than 50% of the city's budget, with overtime being a huge inflationary factor. Public safety is critical, of course, and those are challenging jobs, but overtime skews Empower Oakland's analysis.
I should add that my job was a white collar job in Business Development... The folks (not managers) who physically clean the streets and maintain the parks in Oakland typically make $50K or less.
Join Alameda County Taxpayers Association. Stopping the free spending starts with awareness. Same at State level. We need to #FiXProp19. Find out more at Www.ForCalifornians.com
Years ago, the Citizens Budget Advisory Commission tried to initiate performance based metrics. We started with Parks and Rec (the only place we were allowed to initiate). I have no idea what happened to that program.
Can you provide the source for Oaklands depleted emergency reserve? The last financials I looked at claimed the higher $200m+ number.
Also is there any serious argument that the city can _legally_ access the measure NN funds without budgeting for 700 officers? The prop says any emergency must be unanticipated. These fiscal problems have been known for years!
And yet we were still asked to approve a regressive sales tax hike
Curious why no mention of the unfunded liabilities the city has (from pensions and retiree health benefits to employees that include fire and police) that will continue to rise? These are more generous than surrounding municipalities (which already pay more), so if the city were to slash those, it might make it even more challenging for the city to recruit public safety workers. Source: SPUR presentation included in the City's budget workshops [https://cao-94612.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/documents/Budget-Workshops_All-Partners-Presentations-without-Notes_2025-03-14-073744_giss.pdf]
I saw Detroit for the first time in June 2024 and I was impressed with the progress Detroit has made on it's long-in-coming comeback. I don't know enough about Detroit to know how they achieved that progress, but I do know enough about Oakland to have an opinion about how we keep going downhill. I don't blame the political leadership, who are just taking advantage of the generosity of Oakland voters who keep throwing good money after bad. The political leadership has no incentive to come to grips with the hard-core incompetence of the public workforce because voters keep bailing them out. I was flabbergasted that voters increased the sales tax after a flurry of dishonest mailers that didn't even tell voters what the new tax rate would be. That political literature promised the same basic services that Oakland deserves that were promised to them in Measure NN in November 2024. Now the same services will be promised to them if they vote to raise their parcel taxes again. Wake up, Oakland. Quit enabling your feckless political representatives.
Thanks for this. very helpful!